The regulator said it had “issued guidance to GB News to ensure they take care when discussing conspiracy theories, given the potential harm to audiences”. The regulator also declined to pursue complaints about an episode of Oliver’s show in February, despite conceding that he had made references to “a global elite controlling world politics” – an idea sometimes regarded as an antisemitic trope or at best a baseless conspiracy theory. Ofcom made clear that broadcasters are “free to transmit programmes that include controversial and challenging views” – so long as they don’t go completely unchallenged. The ruling was on the grounds of potential harm to viewers rather than due impartiality, however. GB News has already fallen foul of the broadcasters’ regulator twice – most recently, for an appearance by the Covid conspiracy theorist Naomi Wolf on the Mark Steyn Show, in which she linked the vaccine to “mass murder”. (Bernard, a Mark Dolan viewer, wants to bring back corporal punishment and “the rope”.)īut the framing of sensitive topics by highly opinionated hosts sometimes appears to stretch the definition of “due impartiality”, as demanded by Ofcom. Viewers’ contributions also feature heavily as the channel builds a committed community, with emails read out live and frequent use of vox pops. On Friday’s edition of Calvin’s Common Sense Crusade, presented by the controversialist preacher Calvin Robinson, this involved calling for nuance over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – for which he suggested viewers look to Donald Trump.įrequently the tone is arch, rather than earnest, and discussion panels often feature at least one leftwinger, albeit rarely a senior figure (perhaps in part because the channel’s reputation deters many from appearing).
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These TV shock jocks generally kick off each hour with a polemical monologue (or Moggologue, in the case of the former Brexit opportunities secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg).
Less well-known presenters, including Patrick Christys in the 3pm weekday slot, and Mark Dolan at 10pm at weekends, are equally forthright. These include the former Coast presenter Neil Oliver, the actor turned populist Laurence Fox and the ex-Brexit party leader Nigel Farage. Much of its output is standard fare for a rolling news channel: last week there was Eurovision gossip and speculation about Phillip Schofield’s future and Harry’s car chase, punctuated by anodyne news updates.īut at the heart of its anti-establishment pitch is a string of presenters whose shows are shot through with their fiercely rightwing opinions. Rejecting this “woke creed” seems a constant preoccupation at GB News, which Frangopoulos styles as “staunchly non-metropolitan”.Īngelos Frangopoulos in the GB news studios.
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Last summer it secured an additional £60m in funding from founding investors Paul Marshall – an ex-Liberal Democrat who went on to be a vehement Brexiter – and Legatum Ventures Ltd, the Dubai-based financial firm behind the free market Legatum Institute thinktank.Įarlier this year Marshall wrote on the website UnHerd, which he also funded, that Prince Harry had fallen victim to “the woke creed”, which he claimed had also infected other institutions, including newsrooms. With a monthly reach of 2.8 million viewers – twice that of its Murdoch rival TalkTV – and a place in the political “pool” in which major broadcasters share filming duties, GB News’s boss, Angelos Frangopoulos, told staff in a recent email: “We are firmly part of the mainstream media.”īut some of the views regularly encountered on the channel are anything but mainstream. Since the broadcasting veteran Andrew Neil quit as chair three months after the channel’s launch, complaining that he was in “a minority of one” about its direction, GB News has increasingly planted its flag on the radical right of British politics.
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